The Chekov Chronicles
by belle rouge
Summary: He met her at exactly 0400 hours. It was a time in which he had begun to entertain the possibility that all was lost, when hope failed him and love was but a whisper-thin thread of drawn memory. Prequel to Weight of the World. A Chekov-centric piece.
1. Prologue: Meeting Sonya

He met her at exactly 0400 hours. It was a time in which he had begun to entertain the possibility that all was lost, when hope failed him and love was but a whisper-thin thread of drawn memory.

His Irina had already left him in spirit, her body the only relic remaining of the woman he'd once known; her last breath had been drawn and rendered cold by the sterilized air around her stiffening body. Two nurses had come by much earlier with a hygienic coverlet to conceal her, as if to ward off the authenticity of her death. But he knew she was gone because her hand was hard and motionless, tucked gently into his. He couldn't escape the verity, not with all the thin sheets in the world.

_Complications, Mr. Chekov. Breach birth. I couldn't do a thing for her. Not even with my technology, I couldn't have saved her. Irina was too young and too small and the baby had inflicted serious damage…you understand the complications of a breach birth, don't you?_

The doctor had already gone, but the simulated resonation of his voice was still echoing in Pavel's numbed head.

But at 0400 hours, a nurse approached him with a bundle nestled into her arms. His heart began beating erratically as he saw not a sign of life within the folds of the blankets…no chubby arms, no flailing legs. Not even the newborn shriek, a sound Chekov had always thought of as the cry of the siren, was coming toward him.

His hope was beginning to fade from him again; the abhorrent cruelty was that he was only a boy who, in the few days prior, had barely begun to carefully graze the borders of sixteen and was coping with the burdening title of father; now, as he strayed into a shock-induced stupor, he was a boy of sixteen who was expected to bury his young family – his Irina and his baby.

"Mr. Chekov," came a mild voice, and he looked up from his scuffed shoes to see the nurse with the unmoving bundle. She did not look disquieted, and Pavel took this as a good sign. "Your daughter…she's going to make it alright."

"What?" Pavel's eyes widened, and the half-ghosts of wearied sorrow for the loss were chased away from the fervent blue. "But she…she is not moving-"

"She is, only very weakly. We managed to stabilize her shortly after the delivery. The doctor, he thinks she'll make it…a few days in the infant ward and she can go home with you."

"If she must stay, then…why have you brought her to me?" He peered nervously over the softly rustling blankets.

She smiled, a sort of fatigued gesture of relief. "I thought you might like to meet your daughter, Mr. Chekov."

_Mr. Chekov…Ha ha ha…what a joke! I have not even grown stubble yet, and now I am Mr. Chekov? Please, woman…you make me laugh. _

But when she offered the little one to him, her arms outstretching to transfer her carefully into the young man's uncertain hands, he realized she was serious. He could feel himself trembling; unfortunately for him, it was more noticeable as he reached for the baby. _What if I drop her? __She's all I've got left of Irina...__oy gevalt, she is tiny!_

Pavel shook his head, arms retreating limply to their post at his sides. "No, no…I will drop her, I know it!"

"Nonsense. I'll be right here, promise…if you look like you can't handle it, I'll stage an intervention."

He looked up at her, a half-hearted smile unraveling over his lethargic features. "Miss, a Russian can handle anything."

She returned the grin and successfully handed the young man his little girl, who began to croon faintly as she stirred from her sleep. Pavel stared down at her, taut with that same irrational fear that he would somehow lose control of his limbs and let go of the fleece blanket. It was such a slow-moving dread, crawling through his arms and making him so very stiff. But the baby seemed unfazed by his rigidity; on the contrary, she was much too taken with the sight before her, large eyes as wide and gleaming as gray marbles, to heed her father's unease.

"Look at you," said the nurse. "You're a natural father, Mr. Chekov."

"Am I?"

"Yes, I think so. And I am nearly never wrong."

"It doesn't feel that way," he sighed, tucking his daughter closer to his chest. "But I suppose I will get used to it, da?"

The nurse said nothing while found herself stepping aside as spectator to an unfurling moment between the newly acquainted family.

The boy had become suddenly ensnared by an observation, his vivacious eyes simply glowing in the wake of such a crucial discovery. "My! Doesn't she have such large eyes for a little one as she…you would think she could not wear them with such a small body. I suppose, though, that we know where such a trait comes from," he paused, looking up at her sheepishly, then returned with unconscious ease to the baby in his gentle embrace. "And yet it fits her somehow…as if it wouldn't be right any other way. As if she would not be beautiful without them."

She dared not break the magic of such a moment, but the nurse could not help but marvel at the boy's innocence and undying sense of wonder; even in the face of death, when it had stretched out its cold, black hand from its intangible realm, stealing over that which he loved most and wrenching it from his grasp. It seemed that it was a part of him, something that couldn't be vanquished, though his countenance had taken the full force of the loss – shadows painted beneath his eyes, his young face made gaunt somehow in its unyielding languor. Almost was as if he were lost in some misplaced sense of denial, a dream-like trance which cast a haze over his cognitive mind.

The nurse had begun to swoon, caught up in the tangent of her thoughts, when she found herself again. Waking from her rumination, her unsteady vision settled on the familiar sight before her – the boy and his new daughter. She closely watched the brave, small hand, venturing out of the cocooning warmth of the blanket and stretched to take the boy's long, pale finger when he had offered it to her.

She spoke so suddenly, startling him from what seemed to be somewhat like an engaging conversation between the two. "What will you name her, Mr. Chekov?"

His large eyes drifted over her blankly, the soft blue in them beginning to shift and churn in the intermittent flares of light which caught their gray-tinged hue. "Call her…I have to give her a name…"

"Yes, it is a sort of protocol, to name children." The nurse quipped lightly.

He ignored her chiding banter for a moment before the gaze slid back into their determined, yet exhausted focus. "Sonya. Yes, Sonya is beautiful…just like her," he decided, and looked at her once more. "You know, it means wisdom in our Russia."

"A wise choice."

He did not seem to catch her joke and the woman sighed, unaccustomed to such endearing innocence and slightly melancholy as she came to an understanding...that same charming naiveté had been tarnished somehow. She could see the flitting shadows in his eyes where laughter and child-like wistfulness had been before. However would it be restored? She could never know…when the days had passed and little _Sonya _would be free from her miniature biobed, he would be gone forever.

"Well, it's past Sonya's bedtime," she announced, and with some difficulty, she pried the infant from the eager father's hands. Pavel looked down at the appendages, the sensation of uselessness coursing through him as the warmth from Sonya's tiny body already began to fade around its fragile edges.

The nurse looked expectantly at him. "You should get some rest too…enjoy your last three days of freedom, _sir_. After this, you'll be experiencing the joys of three a.m. feedings and the dread of colic."

He watched as the woman walked away with his Sonya, not exempted from the pain of separation that he now found himself prey to in light of Irina's sudden death. Sonya was all he had left of her dead mother, and without her, Pavel felt the dreadful burden of losing them both.

Because Pavel had experienced such unprecedented release with the baby in his arms…as if Irina had never left. As if she was there, sitting beside him and breathing his air. Weary from the difficult birth, but nonetheless..._alive_.

_Irina…I promise you. I will not let her go so easily as I lost you._

The last light at the end of the hall had been flickering all night. Pavel lingered, watching until the nurse with his baby had disappeared entirely from view while the glaring light overhead wavered dangerously into dormancy.

The young man turned away, his scuffed shoes dragging lazily across the burnished floor; at last, the light was extinguished altogether and the figure was draped in folds of broken darkness.

* * *

AN: This is a short story; it's only five chapters. And just as a warning, all of the chapters are really long, so forgive me. This is a gen!fic based on the one shot I wrote called _Weight of the World_, so there will be no OC's or pairings or anything like that with the exception of some brief mentions of Irina in the course of the piece. This is also somewhat of a story about growing up for our darling little navigator.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy it. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer - I don't own Star Trek. It belongs to Gene Roddenberry and JJ Abrams.


	2. Chapter 1: Decisions

The morning of Sonya's release was met with much enthusiasm on behalf of the young aspiring navigator. Most of the night had been passed restlessly, turning each thought that entered his mind over and over and, methodically, his body mimicked the restive motions – throughout the gray hours of approaching morning, he tossed and turned in his bed. Each thought seemed as self-deprecating and pessimistic as the last – _how are you supposed to take care of this poor little thing? You have classes to attend, and what…you are going to leave an infant to fend for herself while you attend your lectures?_

_I will find a way. _

That was all he could muster up as a counteract against his own heckling conscience. _I will find a way. _It was the answer to the lack of sleeping arrangements and diapers and bottles. It was the answer to the predicament that was his class schedule, which would have him cavorting about the campus from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon attending labs and lectures. He even had an answer for the dilemma of the time he could not afford to lose – _I will find a way._

It was as he waved for a taxi, at the corner of Main and 9th. He figured it must have been the coffee shop behind him that had stirred his senses and cleared his mind so rapidly, but in reality he knew it was the sobering thought that had occurred to him while he waited for the cab to halt at the curb. _You have to find somewhere safe for her, Pavel. It is the only way you can keep her…sending her away._

_It makes no sense. Keep her if I send her away? I wouldn't be keeping her at all!_

_She'll be alive, won't she? Alive and well and someday she will recognize your sacrifice. Send her to your mother...it would be good for her there._

_I can't let her leave, not when she's the only part of Irina I have left. I can't and I won't! I refuse to do it…_

_If you send her back home, she will be safe. And you can visit her when you want…she'll only be a shuttle's ride away._

The idea suggested itself to Pavel that it was rather strange for his inner contending to be so detached, as if two different people were antagonizing one another in his head.

"Hey, buddy! Sometime this week! I've got a wife and kids to feed, you know?" Snapped the driver from inside the car, and Pavel hurried into the back seat, digging through is pockets for money. He idly chuckled at the situation – he, too, now had a kid to feed. No girlfriend, he recalled morosely, the numb feeling starting to crawl through the pit of his stomach.

"Here, sir…I hope it's enough!" Pavel winced as the cabby gave a brusque huff as he took the money.

The man grunted, recording the amount into his data slate. "Where to, kid?"

"California Pacific Medical Center, 3700 California St, San Francisco-"

"Alright, alright…Jesus, tyke. Don't be so eager, alright? I mean, sheesh…keep your shirt on; I know what city I'm in as well as you do…"

At this, he was thoroughly invaded by a sudden streak of timidity. "But mister, I newer intended to remove my shirt, especially in public…"

The cabby turned in his seat and cast such a look of pained disbelief that Pavel felt his cheeks grow hot as the little flares of embarrassment heated his pale skin. But the man said nothing directly to the boy, only began to mutter under his breath, and Pavel was sure he heard the words _damn foreigners _in the string of profanities and cantankerous ponderings that ensued for the remainder of the short, but torturous ride.

The young man was glad to escape from the racial digression that had so consumed the better half of the cabdriver's attention for the entire ride, hearing almost nothing else but cursing and the annoyances of foreign ignorance. Without another word, Pavel leapt from the backseat as soon as the vehicle beneath him had stopped fully before the entrance to the hospital. Vaguely, he heard the purr of the engine receding as the cab drove away behind him, but he found himself much too nervous to pay much mind to it.

_This is it. She's officially mine in ten minutes, and no one can take her from me._

He drew a breath to steel himself against the swarm of nerves that flooded him and a wave of anxious butterflies washed over his clenching stomach.

Pavel was pleasantly surprised to find the nurse that he had met the night of Sonya's birth had arrived to escort him to the infant's ward. It had taken some coaxing on his behalf, as the woman at the receptionist desk had not seemed able to grasp the concept of such a _young_ boy arriving _alone_ to pick up _his_ newborn baby. Or so the emphasis had been on the particular words he had received…she didn't look too amused about what she thought was a practical joke and the look she had been giving him made him feel slightly uncomfortable. Suddenly, his shirt collar began to feel as if it were constricting around his neck; he wished someone would walk through the doors and let a gust of fresh air into the stifling room.

"Oh, Mr. Chekov! Back so soon, are we?" The nurse remarked wryly.

The receptionist turned to look at the girl incredulously. "This boy's with you, Frances?"

"Sure is," the woman named Frances replied, crossing her arms defiantly over her slim chest. "Frankly, I couldn't believe it at first either. But it's true – he's a new father. Can't you tell by the deer in the headlights sort of look in his eyes?"

Clearly amused, the receptionist gave a disapproving snort as she turned back to her database. "Escaped me…but I _was_ a little busy marveling over his age to be paying much attention to his expressions."

France rolled her eyes and gestured nonchalantly at Pavel, motioning for him to follow her. He eagerly complied to her wordless demand and scooted carefully around the white arc of the front desk before bounding after the hasty woman three paces in front of him. When he had caught up, she glanced transiently over her shoulder and smiled. "Well, you can't blame her, Mr. Chekov…you could be considered a baby yourself, if you get past the specifics."

"I'll have you know, Miss France, that I am sixteen years and two months old; I have a much more intricate calculation, down to the very second of my age but...I will not pain you with specifics," he waved his hand genially and continued on, his enthused voice rising a little as he spoke. "In Russia, a boy is considered a man when he leaves home to take his first job…I have done this already. I left home last year for Starfleet Academy, and here I am…no more a little boy than you are a little girl!"

She laughed amiably in reply. "The Academy…is that so? You're a prodigy, aren't you…" It wasn't a question, but a mere statement of verification. "I should've known…boys your age don't just wind up in a hospital alone with new babies when they're still living at home. I know my parents were too busy breathing down my neck to let that sort of thing happen to me."

They turned a sharp corner, dodging the doctors and nurses who, in their own ways, seemed practiced enough in the art of evasion to avoid them without their assistance. A voice overhead alerted a team of medical personnel and a surgeon to the loading dock.

"It was an accident. Sonya was not supposed to happen," Pavel admitted solemnly. "But…I will make amends, I hope. Set ewerything right again."

"But Sonya is the most beautiful mistake you've ever made, isn't that right?" France smirked at him over her shoulder, but was surprised to see the boy had a knack for side-stepping her jokes. Or perhaps they just flew over his head…too literal in his young age.

"I newer said she was a mistake…merely accidental. There is difference between two words, da?" He looked at her with such questioning eyes as she hesitated at the door of the infant ward.

"Yes, there's a difference." She replied. "But, c'mon, Mr. Chekov…she is waiting for you."

His entire expression ignited as she reminded him, like a moth to a flame, she mused. The bruise-like shadow of bereavement still suspended over him, holding sway over the vibrancy with which he portrayed his emotions. But his innate vivacity seemed to break through the somber apathy which threatened to conquer him if he dared let it – she had to hand it to him, the boy's determination was beyond his years.

Without another word, she put out her hand as if to silently restrict him to the doorway's boundaries. Pavel was much too enthusiastic about the long awaited reunion to merely wait by the door; he instead strayed near the windows, where he could watch as the little pink bundle was taken from her diminutive biobed. His fingers began to curl in anticipation as France pivoted on her white-soled heels to return to the glaringly lit corridors…

When she at last reached the hallway with the baby, Pavel was all too impatient to reach for her.

But the nurse eluded his mindless groping. "Look, Mr. Chekov…there's some woman-to-man wisdom I need to share with you before you go. Or, in this case…woman to _boy_."

When she found that the expression she received was of utter confusion, she gently prodded the boy toward a pair of gleaming white waiting chairs settled adjacently to the door. "Let me explain…I'll even let you hold her while I talk, but only if you listen."

He laughed as he, at last, accepted Sonya into his grip, easing into the generous comforts the chair offered for him. "You talk as if I am a mere child myself…"

She watched him blankly. "You _are_…I know it's a cold, hard truth for adolescents to face, especially one who's on his own like you are. But really…you're just a kid."

"Then it is obwious that our opinions are different, but that does not mean that you can patronize me, miss…I won't allow it!"

His eyes flashed and France realized she'd unknowingly prodded some sensitive matter of pride, and perhaps even the impression of youthful arrogance confronted her in that aggressive defiance of his. As she regarded him, the silence stretched between the pair and seemed to consume any inclinations to speak. He held Sonya close to his chest, almost as if he were challenging her to try and take her from him – she knew she would not win and that he would never surrender.

"I'll just say this quick so we don't part with any harsh words between us. I'd hate for that to happen, since you're such a sweet…" She paused and his head snapped toward her, awaiting her next word with such hope in his eyes that she dared not let him down. "_Guy. _It would be…sad."

He was silent, even as she faltered and began to desperately search for her words. She took this as his approval, his wish for her to continue. "But…hear me out, alright? I know that taking care of a baby is a hard gig. When you were here a couple of nights ago, I was under the impression that you had some sort of…mother or something around, you know? Now that I know you're on your own though…you've gotta think about what comes next."

"Oh…" He nodded, drinking in the ambiguous information France was imparting to him, though it was with little understanding that he digested it. "What comes next then...?"

She sighed, shrugging her shoulders casually. "God, there's a whole list of nightmares that babies can make…the unending crying, the spitting up, the susceptibility to croup, and hell, don't get me started on those diapers. The ceaseless worrying about them, though. You can blame it on how vulnerable they are, but in the end…that's all you. And that's the worst of them all, I think…the constant worrying. It never goes away, either."

"_Ewer_?" Pavel croaked, his eyes widening in terror.

"_Never_ ever…" She cracked a mirthful smirk. "I'm afraid you're stuck with that one until you die or she dies. Even then you might still worry what she's up to in the afterlife..."

Her revelation hit him hard. It was a collision marked by the pallor that seemed to bleed into his face and, slowly, even devour the willing eagerness he had harbored so easily before. The baby in his arms seemed to grow even more heavy, though he recognized the impossibility that the tiny little thing couldn't have weighed more than a PADD herself.

No, he knew…it was the weight of responsibility crashing over him like a white-crested wave, and he was drowning in the midst of such an unpredictable sea. Even with such advanced development that his brain possessed, he still had the feelings, the heart of a young man; nothing, not even feigned ignorance, could let him escape from that.

"So…what do I do? Take parenting classes?" He suggested, more out of an outright entreaty for her advice than his own ideas. "I suppose I could fit that into my schedule, as long as they are at night…"

"No…I'm saying you should find her a home."

The pause was so heavy with fluctuating emotion in him that Pavel felt as though he was going to be sick – anger, panic and dread were the most prominent of the myriad penetrating his good sense like a tricky spider spinning her thickly woven web.

Let her go? How could he _possibly _let her go? He could no sooner part with his lungs, with his _heart_, than give Sonya away; like some sort of superfluous household pet who had grown boring after the novelty tapered off and the fragile puppy had grown, losing the essence of intrigue…that was what he felt like he would be doing. Disposing of her like some old, unwanted dog.

He stood so quickly from his seat, the baby wrapped in the protection of his arms, that he startled the young nurse beside him. The look on her face reflected what must have been on his, and he realized there was a trace of fear in the lines that curved around her mouth, like parenthesis hiding her unspoken words. The expression he donned must have been some god-awful merging of swift-footed panic and the slow crawl of fear.

"You could let a relative adopt her, someone close to you…"

She had begun bargaining with him. Like what? Like some _criminal_?

He turned away from her, struggling to remember amid his disorientation from which way he had come.

"Come on…you've got to listen to me," she called after him, desperate to be heard over the bustle of their surroundings. "You've got a mother back in Russia, don't you? She would take her for you…if I know mothers, then I know she will."

But he had already consciously shut her out, her voice just another droning hum in the background of the hospital.

_You should listen to her, Pavel._

_Thank you wery much, but I **refuse**._

* * *

It was a difficult task, collecting all of the necessary items he would need to care for the baby…especially when there was no one to help him and he had resorted to relying on only himself to handle the situation. Even more difficult was having to carry Sonya around with him while he desperately searched for items, from bottles to diapers, and the convenience of a baby carrier seemed only to lessen the amount of obstacles he faced by a fraction. Nonetheless, he knew it had to be done.

He had received many a questionable look as he traveled from store to store, a baby carrier in one hand and a slowly thinning wallet in another. He had purchased a crib (the cheapest he could find was still a wallet-buster), three bottles, and a package of diapers to last him, by his calculations, for a few days. Not to mention the baby formula and two blankets, just in case the seasonal chill threatened to fall earlier than was expected.

And as Pavel continued to purchase, the numbers in his bank account began to dwindle. He grew frantic; already, he had nearly gutted all of his summer work savings.

The patronizing little voice inside his head had begun to surface again as he transferred the items from the cab to his room as surreptitiously as possible, hoping he would not be caught. _You need to surrender…this situation will only get worse if you do not come to terms with it now._

_No pain, no gain…how will I learn if I do not sacrifice?_

Once he had finished placing the varying boxes and packages in a neat little corner, he rushed into the claustrophobic space that served as a makeshift kitchen, his hand idly grasping a can of formula. He could not remember when she had last eaten, and worried he might have waited too long as she began to softly whimper in her carrier – he was all too aware of the ease that a whimper could transition into a full-fledged wail if further provoked by hunger. Pavel felt himself at least fortunate in the sense that baby formula was not so intricate in its preparation as he had first expected. In mere minutes, he had filled a bottle to the brim with crème-colored milk and was racing across the room once more to feed the whimpering little creature at the foot of his bed.

"Here you are, _moya sladkaya…_don't fret. I bring food for you, da?" He murmured softly to her, guiding the bottle to her mouth so gently so that she could drink.

But even in the midst of his fumbling paternal instincts, he almost shied completely away from the task out of fear of frightening her, or otherwise causing some form of injury. His intrinsic tendency for gaucherie led him to believe that all actions, at least in the presence of the baby, would have to be carefully calculated and conducted, like if he were presented with a pair of lab simulation coordinates or a quantum physics equation. In fact, he noted…he should be even more vigilant than usual. He couldn't kill a lab simulation coordinate or shatter the bones of a physics equation; but one misguided step with Sonya in his arms could prove disastrous.

In fact, the conception was so abhorrent that Pavel didn't even want to consider such a dreadful circumstance.

Instead, his mind wandered back to the basic procedures of newborn care. From his observations in the waiting room, he had been so fortunate as to witness an actual feeding by an experienced parent and had taken mental notes in order to retrace the steps at a later date, when it had become a necessitation.

He had noticed the way she had placed her own infant slightly over her shoulder, so that the woman's hand rested against its back. A few soft (_very_ soft, he chided himself) pats on the back were administered in order to perhaps discharge any air that might have entered the intestines or simply settle a full stomach. Either way, Pavel couldn't see any way of escaping the ritual – he _was_ a father now, and fathers _should_ know best for their daughters.

_As carefully as you would contemplate a metaphysics concept, Pavel. _He sucked in one terrified breath as he wound his fingers tightly, but not too forcefully, around the little one's midsection. Wide, gray eyes nearly distracted him from his purpose as they blinked sleepily at him, half-hooded with lethargy; he could hardly blame her. The long day had certainly put a damper on his usual vigor as well. But her weight, trifling as it was, drew him back into the circlet of reality and he continued with the ritual and placed her conscientiously over his chest, guiding her head to rest on his shoulder. He began lightly tapping the soft skin of her back, slowly easing into the task when it seemed to show no signs of surprising him in any way.

_There, this isn't so hard…I can do this!_

That is, until her fragile body seemed to croak and proceeded to project vomit all over the front half of Pavel's shirt.

"_Chyort voz'mi!" _He cried, springing to his feet out of sheer astonishment. He was fortunate enough to have a strong grip and held the baby in place, but as the ominous whimpers began to resonate in Sonya's little chest, Chekov realized he had frightened her - he instantly felt more like a pitiless monster than a _father_.

"Oh, oh no…_nyet_, little one…don't cry. Don't cry," he whispered, cradling her head and bouncing her ever so gently to calm the subdued cries which emitted from her rosebud lips. "I am truly sorry. I did not mean to upset you, _Pasha_…forgive me. I do not know what I am doing, I admit it."

He crooned softly into her ear for a few moments, endeavoring to calm those heartrending sounds, as an idea slowly flourished in his mind. When he had succeeded in quieting her completely, he swathed her in the pink blanket of the two fleeces he had bought for her earlier that day and placed her in the baby carrier. Once he was convinced that she would not find some way to wriggle herself free, he fished through his back pocket for the communicator, sighing wearily when he had discovered its location.

For one, he hoped the plan would work. Two…he hoped she was around that time of night because, usually, she _wasn't_.

But he decided to try, even if the attempt was a futile one. There was no harm in trying, was there?

Someone picked up, but it wasn't her. "Hello?"

He was slightly surprised that the communication's connection had been picked up at all. "Oh, hullo there I…I am sorry, really…I thought this was Gaila that I was calling for?"

"Well, this is her communicator," the woman explained, her voice matter of fact. "But, Gaila isn't here. She's out…_studying_." He could almost hear the quotation marks being shuffled around the comically articulated word.

"Oh, yes…the studying with her male friends, da?"

The woman on the receiver gave a long, sultry laugh. "Well, that's one way of looking at it."

"Alright," Pavel sighed, casting a desperate glance at the wide-eyed infant sitting so quietly in her carrier. "I am sorry, truly, for interrupting anything…I was needing Gaila's help, but it seems impossible now…"

Much to Pavel's pleasant surprise, his unwarranted commentary had sparked the woman's interest. "Well, it _is _a Thursday. My last day of classes for the week, I'm afraid. I've finished all my assignments, and all I'm really doing is studying transmissions of early 22nd century sub-space frequencies…perhaps I can help you. What's the problem?"

She had made it sound so casual, the study of sub-space frequencies, that Pavel had almost wanted to laugh at her nonchalance. But as he didn't know whether or not it was intentional or not, he refrained. "Well..."

Then he remembered the voice, matching it to a very beautiful face that he recalled meeting once as a friend of Gaila's. Nyota Uhura was her name. But that was Cadet Uhura to anyone who had lacked the sense to disrespect her. He remembered her asking him to call her Uhura, because that was what she went by…Nyota was a whole other world of secrecy that she had not been inclined to delve into on that night. So to Pavel, it was Uhura. Nothing more, nothing less.

What he also remembered was that Uhura liked the rules a little too much for his current predicament. When it came to citing Starfleet regulations, she knew it all and Pavel had a feeling that Sonya's presence would be against the academy's policy. Would she report him? He wasn't so sure if she would or wouldn't…and that lack of trust frightened him. From the sound of it, Gaila would be much too stricken with after-party syndrome to have the capacity to deal with a baby…but Uhura was sober and, from what he knew, a completely responsible human being. It was his only hope…his last chance.

"Well, first, I need to tell you something that you might not like."

"Why would you assume that?"

He paused, gathering his strength and the right amount of nerve for confession. "Uhura…I can call you that, da?" He paused, giving a resigned sort of sigh. "I've got myself into a little situation and I need help…just for a day, and I can pay you…I have money that I can give you if you would help me!"

It was her turn to hesitate, and the lack of response on the other end of the line caused Pavel some measure of distress. If Uhura decided she did not like the situation or the Pavel's execution of control over its outcome, then he could be reported to the administration. The worst in regards to his academic career was perhaps suspension…but Sonya would most definitely be taken from him. He could _not_ let that happen.

But at last he was provided with an answer. "You stay where you are, Pavel Chekov. I'll be over there as quickly as possible…you can tell me all about it then."

* * *

A quick succession of three perfectly arranged knocks at his door relayed to him the arrival of his last chance. Pavel despised thinking of another human in such degraded terms but, as the urgency of the situation began to cloud his capable mind, he could find no way around the degenerate thought process. He invited her in without question and she politely perceived the encouragement, following him past the milk-splattered microwave and the clutter of baby supplies that lay in haphazard arrangements all over the dorm.

Pavel noticed, grimly, that she eyed the objects with some suspicion, but thankfully said nothing…at least until they reached the sleeping area and the woman could not contain an almost shrill gasp of bewilderment.

Once she had reclaimed her composure, which had not taken long, she turned to Pavel with a look of fury beneath the surges of confusion which still seemed to flutter in her dark eyes.

"What is this, some sort of joke?" Her tone was perfectly level, but he could sense the disapproval on her as if she were wearing it like a strong perfume. "You – no, I'd better start before that. At the beginning…where did you _get_ this baby?"

"She's mine," he replied bashfully, feeling his cheeks begin to warm once again. "Well, not all mine...Irina's too. But I'm sure you heard that she…she died a few days ago."

Uhura's brow knitted, her underlying curiosity beginning to surmount the initial shock. "I remember…Irina _was_ pregnant."

His eyes lit up, and Uhura watched as the expression, which before had been rather placid, flourished into a bright and eager bloom of ardor. "You knew of my Irina?"

Uhura shrugged, almost shamefully as if she were suddenly regretful."Not intimately. But I had seen her before, in the halls…and we had a...certain course together, in the same hour. She never mentioned you but…that's not saying so much, is it? We always talked about the course work and the academy…never our personal lives."

There was a bout of silence that passed between them, during which Uhura looked up at Pavel, who was still, in his adolescence, slightly taller than she was. He saw the unspoken apologies in her eyes.

"Look, Pavel…I'm so sorry about…what _happened_." Her voice was nearly a whisper. "It's not fair."

He didn't want to talk about Irina. Talking about her death, even thinking of it, made the weight of such a cruel truth seem that much more real, more encumbering than before. And considering how genuine it appeared to him then, just standing there listening to Cadet Uhura apologize to him for a fortuitous twist of fate she had absolutely no influence over, he figured that any more words on the subject might have shattered his veneer of denial altogether.

And besides the fact that he didn't want to talk about her, he had promised an explanation. A good distraction, he realized, was in the cards for him.

"If you'll let me explain, I-"

She shook her head absently, searching his eyes. "No, Chekov…there's no need. I understand what you're doing here."

He inclined his head faintly, feeling the disheveled bronze curls shift as he moved. "You do?"

"Yes, and I think it's noble but…you can't keep her, not in this place. You know that, don't you?"

_Not you too, Uhura…must everyone doubt me? I am not as young and inexperienced as they all think. And…and even if I am what they think I am, I can __**learn**__. I have always had the ability to learn faster than all the rest, and I can do it again. I can and I will…I won't let her go, not when she's all I have left of Irina._

"Wait, let me explain-"

"_Don't you_?" She probed, tilting her head even more; he felt like his soul was being permeated, conquered so easily by an insistent tone in the face of rationality.

He couldn't withstand the dominion those eyes held over him…those dark, soft eyes that pervaded his overbearing arrogance and dismantled, piece by piece, his gradually failing vigilance. "I cannot do it! I cannot give her up…you don't understand, Uhura," he felt his eyes begin to sting, and he clamped down on his lip to fight back the imposing tears. "She is my daughter. In Russia, we do not leave our young ones to others to take care of. It is a responsibility that, when we choose to accept it, is _ours_…and ours alone."

Of course Uhura understood the concept. It was technically the same basic protocol everywhere. But that did not stop her from rejecting his primitive concept of logic…it was unsound and she knew it, but she also realized it was not her place to decide for him.

"Fine. I know you have classes tomorrow, so I'll keep an eye on her until you come back…" She trailed off, watching the relief spread over his face. "But after tomorrow, I can't anymore. You'll have to make the right decision. And I know you will because you're a genuinely good person, Chekov…I _know_ you are."

When he gave no response, she sighed and swept her hands through her hair in an almost irritable fashion. Uhura could recognize when someone wanted to be alone - she gently brushed her fingers over his hand as she dismissed herself, leaving behind a consoling reminder that after she left, she'd still be there...standing by, in case he needed her. He would not be on his own, not _really_.

But that night, as Pavel lay in the dark and stared, unblinking, at the crib across the room, he had never felt more alone in his life. In a few days, his roommate would return and how would he explain a newborn baby as their new resident? Not to mention the irreparable damage done to his wallet, which he needed for emergencies and cab fares…however would he replenish those funds? More importantly, how would he continue to take care of her when all the money had gone?

As he sprawled face down across his bed, Pavel closed his eyes and came to a terrible conclusion. He had been entirely selfish, thinking only of his own withdrawn feelings rather than taking into consideration the baby's well being.

_God, they were all right. And I was too blind to see it!_

_I can't keep her here…_

And for the first time in days since Irina's death, Pavel curled in on himself like a wilting flower; he sobbed, allowing the tears to breach their heavily guarded borders. No, he'd never felt more alone…

* * *


	3. Chapter 2: Home

Before departing for early lectures that morning, which he found rather unwelcome as he found no sleep throughout the night, Pavel attempted to establish a communicative connection with his mother. When he received no answer, he resolved to at least leave an informative message so she would know he would be arriving sometime within the next day or so – _Mat, it is Pavel here. I have found myself in a little trouble and I need to wisit you as soon as possible…if you will have my company, that is._

As he was dressing slowly in his cadet's uniform, a bright shade of vermillion which seemed to penetrate his vision and painfully strike his somnolent brain, the three carefully articulated knocks came at the door and piqued his otherwise indolent interest; Uhura was there, already? He stole across the quiet, dark room, tripping over a package of renegade diapers which had hindered his course toward the door, his fingers fumbling with a difficult button.

She had heard his stumble from behind the thick partition (ears of a Vulcan, he swore). "What's the access code?"

"Two four sewen thirty two." He called, still wrangling with the stubborn button.

She entered before the metal sheath had pulled back all the way, revealing a fresh-faced woman with her dark hair, as always, swept back in an immaculate ponytail. "_Good morning, Chekov_." She spoke, and the foreign phrase slid like crushed velvet over her dexterous tongue. But, like most times, Pavel could not understand a word of what she'd said.

"I know some of the Federation languages, you know that…but not all of them." He reminded her.

She gave a mild sort of laugh and she stepped forward to swat away his groping hands, tackling the stubborn fastening herself. Pavel reasoned that if Nyota Uhura could not conquer it, then he would find himself with a lost cause and an unsightly uniform in the end...not to mention, in need of new standard issue attire.

"It actually means 'good morning' in Swahili…"

"That is not alien, Uhura." He mentioned uncertainly, as if expecting to be the object of some terrible trick. He summoned to memory the many instances when Uhura had greeted him in different Federation alien dialects, ranging from Vulcan, which he had dabbled in occasionally, to more infrequent vernacular like Denobulan. But they had always been extraterrestrial languages…

"I thought I would surprise you this time. Besides, going back to one's roots is a nice little remedy for unwanted nostalgia." She bit her lip absently and succesfully slipped the binding into place.

All the while, he couldn't help but think - _leave it to Uhura to make a Russian feel like a helpless little boy! _Despite his wounded pride, he could not deny his appreciation for assisting him; after all, she could have wounded his sense of self even more by standing by and watching him suffer. Either way, it was a situation in which dignity had to be sacrificed; there was no salvaging it.

"There you are. All finished." She smoothed a small patch of wrinkles from the red material, just beneath his left shoulders, but her eyes had begun to scrutinize his tired face. "Chekov…you didn't sleep last night, did you?"

"No, not a wink," he sighed. "I was worried for her all night. I couldn't stop! I think this is punishment for energy, that I should stay up all night thinking and being anxious for a _sleeping_ baby."

Uhura smiled, taking his lighthearted banter as a good sign of capable cognition. "From what I've read of human nature...new parents are always anxious for their children. It's a paternal instinct. Even normally lazy people experience it, and in those situations, I'd call that sort of insomnia a phenomenon."

They shared a small bit of laughter which subsided after a minute, his finally tapering into a contented sigh. "You are wery funny, Uhura. It's not a wonder Gaila likes you!"

"Yeah, well, it's not all that special, Gaila liking someone," Uhura remarked wryly, though he could sense some emotional attachment for the Orion in the way she spoke of her. "She likes everyone... men especially."

"Oh," he noted awkwardly, realizing at once what exactly she was referring to, and grew unusually hot around the collar with a flush rising in his cheeks. To distract himself from the slight embarrassment, he turned away from her and proceeded toward the small cooling mechanism in which he kept the leftover formula. "Da, well…I must be going soon."

She followed him with uneasy eyes while he crossed the room, his heading undoubtedly for the lonely little crib in the corner of the untidy room (at this she was most certainly surprised; she'd held Pavel in high regard as the most organized man, or boy, she knew). "What are you doing?" The question wasn't demanding, but meant to stimulate his slightly foggy memory when she noticed he seemed to show symptoms of one who was feeling a little lost. "Your first class starts in ten minutes."

"I have to feed her…her last feeding was-" he paused, but only for an instant. "Four hours, six minutes and forty-one seconds ago. Not to mention that she spit much of it ower me, which accounts for less than a teaspoon of the approximate six teaspoons she drank…"

He settled the small bundle of pink blankets into the crook of his arm. "Computer, turn heating tablet on."

A small whirring sound commenced from the other side of the room.

Uhura, however, looked displeased with the turn of events. "Chekov, I am more than capable of feeding a baby."

He exhaled slowly as he cast a sideways glance in her general direction. "I know, but I should do it."

"Why?"

"She's my responsibility."

"She'll be my responsibility for the next seven or so hours," she retorted lightly, teetering on the brink of amusement. "I will do it and you will hurry to lecture hall before you're written up for tardiness. Besides, it'll be a little bonding time for the two of us…"

He inclined his head to the side to the slightest degree, his ageless brow puckering curiously. "Uhura, I don't think she's old enough to start bonding yet…"

"It was a bit of a joke. Hand her to me." she said. He transferred the baby into her waiting arms and a look of anxiety instantaneously breached the wearied borders of his expression as the infant left his grip; the same feeling had begun to stir deep in the pit of his stomach.

She caught the change in his countenance before he had the chance to mask it. "Don't you worry…I'll be very careful with her. She's safe with me…you go on to lecture hall now and she'll be here when you get back."

He nodded half-heartedly and the eyes Uhura had come to find familiar, over the few short months she had known Cadet Pavel Chekov, hardened somehow, as if a shield had formed over their blue-gray color and the shades of eager sincerity were drawn back. Uhura marveled at the cryptic screen as he then lunged forward, enfolding the woman in a delicate hug as to not suffocate the baby.

At first, she was slightly taken aback by the spontaneity of the situation, but eased into the gesture, realizing it was his way of communicating his gratitude. It was not the same as the portrayal of words and tendrils of phrase that she was accustomed to as the method of conveying appreciation, but it was not an unpleasant astonishment. In fact, she rather enjoyed the expressiveness of Pavel's naiveté and the innate generous nature he possessed.

"Don't think on it…I was glad to help." She replied, giving a small, crooked smile. Her voice had been subdued with the same note of surprise that she had experienced moments before, the sentiment threading through the awkward words…it wasn't often that Uhura found herself caught off her guard.

She watched Pavel rush out the door, his effervescence overflowing from every hastened step.

* * *

By midday, Pavel was exhausted.

Throughout the morning, he had somehow suffered the symptoms of his sleepless night with little difficulty, crossing legs and relocating arms infrequently to alleviate the unyielding ache in his muscles or a brief stretch below his desk to wake them. Sometimes, if he found himself dozing off, he'd answer a class-directed question (not one of those rhetorical ones that always seemed to confuse him) in order return his focus to its usual mathematical virtuoso. The methods seemed to work, for the most part, and until lunch hour he had managed to make it through the day.

But as he sat at the table, the last in the row, directly beneath a window that he and Sulu had claimed by an unconscious sort of habit, he surrendered to his collapsing impetus – he lay his head against the hard, cold surface and tried to remember how to count. _One…two…three…four…_

A body moved into his line of vision, blocking it with that stunning vermillion shade. He blinked away the stab of pain that rippled through his eyes as the figure neatly folded into the seat beside him like a paper doll. "You look like you've seen better days, Chekov."

He couldn't argue with that logic.

The man looked around skeptically, as if stricken with by a spontaneous spell of paranoia. His voice was considerably low as he spoke. "Well, how is she? Tell me about her…I mean, I know babies aren't exactly bubbling with personality just yet-" Cadet Sulu hesitated as a thought occurred to him, a smile of perceptivity brightening his unrelentingly placid countenance. "Actually, this is _your_ baby we're talking about here. I suppose she _could _be bursting with individuality by now."

Pavel sighed and lifted his head from the table, his skin sticking a little to the warmed, white-washed metal as he pulled it away. With a sigh, he rested his cheek against the palm of his hand and emitted a small, listless yawn. Sulu had been his sole companion for the first two years he'd attended the Academy, having not yet befriended the vivacious and slightly provocative Gaila.

They'd met on the first day, assigned to many of the basic and required courses and after the conclusion of their first, even second years of their admission into the prestigious school, their friendship endured the separation. While Pavel scored high marks and earned relentless praise on account of his acclaimed brilliance from his Commanding officers in Transporter Theory and Stellar Cartography, Sulu was excelling and earning his own commendation in his chosen subjects – Advanced Botany and Astrosciences.

It was Sulu that had been the first to learn of Irina's pregnancy, the first to congratulate the pair on their welcomed, yet highly unexpected little one. Chekov had told Sulu in confidence, knowing he would never renounce them for their simple, youthful mistake, never betray their secret and would always be there to help them if they ever needed it.

Three years later, the companionable bond between them remained as strong and intricately wrought as ever.

"Come on, Chekov. You should talk about something…it will wake you up a little," Sulu probed gently, sliding the younger man's tray closer to the pale, idle hands. "And _eat_."

Resigned, the drowsy cadet reached for the vibrant green apple. "There is not much to tell, yet. But she is approximately five pounds and is not a wery good eater, from what I've seen so far."

Sulu raised a questioning brow. "Pukes more than she eats, huh?"

At this, young Pavel's heart began to hammer desperately against his chest, little swells of panic breaking over his delirious head. "Is..is that bad? Should I take her to a doctor?"

He had momentarily forgotten the language barrier between them, how ignorant Pavel was to most American colloquialisms in his primitive knowledge of its particulars. "No, no," The man assured him, calm and collected as ever."It's a bit of a hyperbole. You know, an exaggeration?"

During an ephemeral moment of silence between them, Pavel waded through his thoughts as he scrutinized the green apple, turning it over in his hands like it had some empowering ability to strengthen his cogitation.

"I have to take her to Russia tonight, Sulu." He finally admitted, averting his eyes to his friend.

At first, Sulu looked as if he intended to reply to Pavel's weighty declaration, but he appeared to have decided against it when he mildly clapped the boy on the back instead.

* * *

The moment Pavel entered his dorms at 1600 hours, the green-tinged, red-haired illusion of a voluptuous woman in a dangerously short skirt greeted him in the epicenter of his self-diagnosed delirium. He tried to ignore it at first, occupying himself by searching the room for Uhura, but when he found her gone and Sonya in the arms of what seemed a mere emerald-colored splash and the shock of scarlet hair he finally took a good look at it. His ears sharpened to hear the raucous cooing and the familiar whimpers wafting up from the little coverlet like steam rolling off warm water. _Gaila._

"What are you doing here?" He lunged forward and gave the Orion a start as she hadn't seemed to notice his return. "Gaila, who let you in?"

"Well, no one really. I sort of invited myself," she replied aloofly, shaking her head so that the curls went flying, settling over her shoulders like rippling waves of red water. "Uhura was angry at first but…she got over it. As always."

"Where is she now?" Pavel glanced around the room.

"Bathroom, freshening up. She'll be out in a minute. In the meantime, I was holding this gorgeous little thing! Oh, Pavel…she's got your eyes." Gaila crooned, making small kissing sounds at the baby as Sonya reached up with pudgy little arms.

"How'd you know that?" He tittered excitedly, rushing to her side and peering over her shoulder for a better look. "I thought we weren't able to know the eye color until at least six months?"

The Orion sighed and shook her head again, this time out of acquiescence. "Never mind…it was a sort of complimentary expression, but I see your English isn't that great yet."

Pavel sighed and set his PADD and communicator down on the barren surface of his desk. Meanwhile, the cogs of his overwrought brain worked. "How many hours did she sleep today?"

"Well, I just came a few minutes before you did, but Uhura told me I could hold precious little Sonya here for a few minutes before you arrived," Gaila paused to fuss over the bright, inquiring eyes that stared up at her, and Chekov almost thought Sonya had smiled. "I expect that, if she gave me permission, she got enough sleep in Nyota Uhura's opinion...and you know that her word is _law_."

"I heard that, Gaila..."

The motorized sound of a door opening and closing resounded behind him, and he turned to see a slightly guilt-ridden Uhura, her hair just as meticulously kept as always. Pavel couldn't imagine what his own hair must have looked like, perhaps a disheveled, frizz-infested eyesore after the unbearable day he'd endured.

But appearance, despite its usual importance in regards to the academy, was the last thing on his mind. Much more important things were absorbing his thinking; he had to catch a shuttle to Russia and try to smuggle a newborn baby through the perpetually swarming corridors of the campus.

"You and I both know that my word is not _law_..." Uhura grinned ecstatically, baring rows of radiant white teeth. "It's so much more than simple _law_. In fact, I'd say it surpasses the importance of scripture." She laughed along with Gaila, who had a bell-like sort of chuckle that everyone had always found so soothing.

"That's blasphemy, Nyota," The Orion woman joked, and Pavel could not contain a smile, listening in on their friendly levity. "You're going to hell for that one."

The hilarity ended almost abruptly as she noticed him standing by his desk, face illuminated by the pale, blue-stained glow of his PADD. "Oh, you're here already? I wasn't expecting you for another half-hour."

"Commander Herbitz had to leave early for an appointment with the Conserwatory downtown," he replied. "Thank you, really...for watching the little one, I mean."

"Like I said before, I didn't mind at all. About Gaila, though...she just sort of…showed up here without permission," she cast a reproachful look at her comrade before switching tactics completely. "What time are you leaving?"

"It's alright, Gaila's always welcome here, you know that," he smiled, then motioned to his PADD breifly. "And I have not had the time to look. But I am hoping to leave soon, before I catch my _mat_ in a bad mood or something equally harming to my plan."

Another knock at the door. Pavel couldn't believe how undeniably popular he'd become in the last twelve hours amongst his friends, and though their acceptance meant the world to him, their amiable invitations to spend time with him were not exactly warranted for the time being. Nonetheless, the inherent gentlemanly manners his mother had nurtured in him as a child suddenly flared up at the opportunity of exercise, luring him to the door to greet his new guest.

The steel gray panel withdrew from its mechanical locks before he'd even had a chance to input the authorized entry code. He figured it must have been someone that considered his dorms a sort of regular haunt; sure enough, Sulu walked in, looking mildly flushed with animation and, if Pavel was seeing correctly, even a little bit proud of himself.

"Sulu, you can't wisit right now…I'm to leave soon, remember?"

"That's why I'm here," he explained, extracting a pair of plastic cards from the lint-riddled, pocketed depths of his casual black slacks. "I've got you a ticket to Moscow, Russia on a shuttlecraft that leaves at 1630 hours."

"But that's a half hour and the shuttle station is across town," Pavel shook his head, the flaccid remnants of hope still dangling over his crestfallen face. He handed Sulu the plastic cards that had been pushed calmly into his hands. "We won't make it."

The man made a lopsided attempt at smile, bubbling laughter vibrating from deep within his gold-skinned throat masking his unease for his young friend. However, he could not obscure the emotion from his words, and Pavel could hear the currents of discomfort in his voice. "That's not the determined Chekov I know."

"_Da_, well…he's busy being tired right now," he rebutted somberly (not to mention, desperately empty as the voracious black hole that his girlfriend's death had created in him slowly dismantled his composure_). "_Call back later."

"Nonsense," Sulu recanted, flourishing his elegant hand so that it was a mere bronzed blur held within the watery sheen of lights overhead. His abstracted informality contrasted like shades of black an white against Pavel's direct aversion. "Just get your kid, put on some clothes and we'll high tail it out of here. I'll see you off."

There was no room in his impatient frame of mind to argue with the insistent Asian, but it didn't give him the genuine desire to want to catch that despicable shuttlecraft either. He was exhausted and hardly retained the will to stand, much less stay be able to stay awake during the long hours on a crowded shuttlecraft with a baby, one that he did not possess the heart to let go of. In fact, he had a mind to stall, just to escape the inevitable cruelty of watching his only link to Irina be gone in a matter of mere moments.

Despite the decision he had sworn to commit to earlier that morning, when his mind had been consumed by the doldrums of sleeplessness, he began to knowingly renege. His resolve began to melt, rendered shapeless while he began to consider his aptitude at keeping secrets – which was very underdeveloped and rather unstable, but he could certainly try.

All he would have to do was explain the situation to his roommate, who was a very courteous young man, despite his slight imperfections when it came to respecting Pavel's need for quietude here and there. Perhaps, if he was discovered, he could ask for help…

"Chekov?" A voice reached his detached ears, and he thought, vaguely, that it was Uhura speaking to him. "You're thinking of staying, aren't you?"

When he did not answer, she processed his silence as confirmation. "You can't do that…she has to have a reliable home, with someone always watching her. You can visit when you like…it's only a shuttle's ride away. And I know it seems cruel, parting with someone that you've grown so attached to, especially when you've just lost Irina. But sometimes the right thing to do isn't as fair as we'd like it to be."

The truth of the words fell all around him, and the crushing weight seemed to force the air out of his lungs, leaving him breathless. Uhura could see the little undulating emotions in his eloquent gaze and, as she looked deeper, found the dewy residue of impending tears like a film of quicksilver over his eyes. Recalling his grateful embrace earlier that morning, she reciprocated the gesture and gathered his trembling body into her arms, tangling her fingers in the patch of curls at the nape of his neck; he did not sob, but he was sure she could feel the warm trail of tears pressed against her russet cheek.

When he pulled away, his eyes were a bright shade of red, but his crying had stopped and he regained his usual poise.

He sniffled lightly, looking around sheepishly as if embarrassed someone would hear his silent breakdown. "Thank you, Uhura. You have saved me again, I think."

"Words are my specialty. It's why I became a xenolinguist," she shrugged playfully, offering him an assuring smile. "Besides, it's what friends do…bring them back from the brink of destruction, just when you think you're going to fall."

Gaila had slithered toward the conversation in that sort of seductive way she had, her hips rising and falling with each step she took. Muted for once (as her chatter, though welcomed, was usually ceaseless), she collected the baby's limbs so gently that it almost seemed unnatural for her to move with such vigilance and placed Sonya in her father's arms.

Pavel smiled half-heartedly at the pair, feeling as if his feet had been stitched to the floor.

"C'mon, Chekov. There's no more time to waste," Sulu's hushed tone seemed to soothe his frayed nerves, and finally Pavel drew together enough motivation to step forward as his friend entered the pass code into the plate beside the door. It slid open, revealing a vacant corridor.

"I know a back way, where we won't be seen." Sulu informed him, and they stole into the hall, bathed in the watchful overhead glare of the lights.

* * *

The journey aboard the shuttle had been nearly sinful in its dreadful passing. If he had been alone, Pavel would have merely let his head slump to the side and capitulate to sleep, but with his infant passenger he could hardly think of dozing; the very idea of it nullified her own sense of safety. Instead, he stayed dutifully awake, ignoring the curious glances from all sides of the craft as best he could.

When he had settled down into his seat, holding the pink coverlet in one arm as he buckled himself in securely, he sighed and looked down at his little one's face. Before then, he'd not had much allotted time to really memorize her dwarfed features, the bright, inquisitive eyes set above round, rosy cheeks. He tried to recall creatures from literature and mythology and religions – like cherubs.

Babies were often deliberated as distant cousins of angels, being bereft of all sin and pure of heart. Blissful creatures who lounged on tufts of clouds while the sun watched over their frolicking, wrapping them in warm little ribbons of heat; at night, the sounds of their drowsing were tiny symphonies, lullabies of the ethereal world. Pavel figured it was the same basic idea, as infants lay in their cribs and chanted their strange little sounds. Almost alien, he thought, in their dissimilarity from their grown counterparts.

At first, he wanted to say something to her, with the way she was looking up at him with those eyes, like lamplights in their rounded intensity, immune to lack of interest it seemed to him. But what to say to a five-day-old baby? Instead, he extended his index finger, hoping it would be enough; it was not long before the tiny grip had seized the offered appendage, and he marveled at her colorless gaze.

Mere hours later, Pavel found himself wandering the near frozen streets of Moscow, scouting the area for available cabs. It was only August and an unseasonal chill had begun to thread through the marrow of his bones like a surreptitious predator, slowly eating him alive. All he had was the rather thin, California-compliant cadet uniform as he had been too senseless to think ahead; he began to fear that the impending chill, deepening as the edges of the sky peeled back to sheer silver-gray, would soon reach Sonya.

At last, he waved down the first available cab he'd seen since ambling aimlessly down the slippery walks. It had only just rained, he mused longingly.

It had not been until he eased into the seat when he realized he had nothing but American currency to pay him with. And even _that_ was meager payment.

The man looked at him with a light of recognition in his tired eyes. "_Hey, you're from the Starfleet Academy. What are you doing in Russia?"_

"_Visiting a relative." _Pavel replied amicably, in perfect Russian. "_But I have no money, so it looks as if I'll be walking from here."_

"_It's cold out there, and you've got a little one with you…_" The man stopped for a moment, thoughtful. "_You give me that pin on your uniform and I'll give you the ride."_

"_This?_" Pavel indicated to the simple pin on his uniform, one that was given out freely at the academy. _"It's not worth anything, sir. I do not wish to cheat you."_

"_That's not entirely true. Here, I can get thirty bucks at a pawn shop for it. Where's your home?"_

"_Three blocks."_

"_Ten dollars a block," _The cabdriver gave a friendly smirk. _"I'd say you were overpaying me, boy!"_

Pavel bowed his head slightly, conveying his immense gratitude. _"Thank you sir…your kindness means much to me."_

He gave the man his pin once they had reached their destination, feeling startlingly fortunate that the man had been so kind and wondering if what he had said about the pin – the more he thought of it, the less veritable it seemed. It had been out of mere sympathy that the man had given him the ride at all, the pin reduced to a token of appreciation in return for the altruistic act.

Robbed of the sheltering warmth the cab had provided, Pavel's former belief that it could not have possibly gotten any colder was nullified as he rushed through the frozen, static air toward the small house. A miasma of breath reached like airy sheaths of ice from his mouth, only verifying the winter-like frigidity of the air; he pulled part of the blanket over Sonya's face like a hood and held her closer, shielding her from the harsh shift in the weather.

Once at the door, he banged on it three times, the echoing vibrations trailing through the muted light of the quiet streets.

At once, the metal pulled back and there she was, Chaya Chekov, who was still as beautiful as ever. Her face had grown softer with age since the last time he had come to see her, not so long ago; she was sick with worry, as she always seemed to be.

"_Oh Pasha…" _She leaned forward, to embrace him, but saw that his arms were not empty.

Her eyes widened as she saw the blankets, however, were quite full. _"Pavel, is this what you came to see me for?"_

He inclined his head slightly, expression beseeching and he felt the full force of the guilt which had burdened him for days resurrect from its dormancy. "_Please…let me explain."_

She did not look happy, of that much he was sure. But she was not angry either, which was what he had expected of her; in its stead rose concern and immense disappointment, filling the sagacious blue-gray planes of her eyes while she invited him in hurriedly. Pavel, at first, did not have the time to feel ashamed; but when the door had shut behind him, so did his ability to shut out the persistent harassment of disgrace as he saw the disillusionment in his mother's furtive glances toward him.

Her chest swelled, falling with a wispy sigh._ "We'll discuss it over tea. Come with me into the kitchen"_

After the door was closed, the small woman crossed the dimly lit halls, every patient footstep dully thudding against the scuffed floor. "_Computer, lights." _All at once, the house became flooded with illumination, and Pavel was temporarily blinded. He listened for the sound of her scuffling feet across the floor, which led him across the barriers that separated the hallway from a small, paltry kitchen.

"_You have milk? She needs to eat something," _Pavel sighed as he sat down in one of the dining chairs.

"_I'll feed her,_" Chaya insisted, gently taking the baby from his arms. They felt instantly useless, like they had all but misplaced their original earthly purpose. She glanced at him, her gaze cryptic as undercurrents of enigmatic emotion ebbed and flowed through their deadened shade. "_I suppose I should accustom myself to being a mother again, seeing as she's to be mine after you leave. Isn't that right, Pavel?"_

"_I am sorry," _He folded his hands, attempting to alleviate the yawning emptiness that had ostensibly consumed them. _"I have dishonored you, I know this…but half of the reason I came here was to ask for your forgiveness. I'd only hoped you'd take her for me, but I do not expect it."_

For a long time, she did not speak at all and it made him very nervous. His hands had become restive as he watched her coast from one end of the kitchen to another with little whimpering Sonya in her arms, searching for a makeshift bottle until she found something that would suffice. She poured the milk into it and placed it into her microwave, speaking the command for it to turn on; meanwhile, the only sound in the room was Pavel's carefully restrained breaths and his mother's shuffling feet. A clock somewhere told him it was well past four in the morning, and that he had not slept in days.

At last, the microwave stopped and returned to its inert state. His mother pulled the warm bottle from inside, testing it on her arm to make sure it would not burn the infant's tongue. Once she was assured, she turned back to the table, looking more tired than ever as she perched on the seat across from him. Her face and the underlying expression beneath were both hard.

"_Pavel, how…how could you do this? I thought you went to America to learn, not to repopulate? It was hard, letting you go off to San Francisco at such a young age, and still you are too young to be away from home," _she paused as Sonya made a little sound, but found it was only a noise of contentment. _"And now you come back…with a __**baby **__for me? In my old age?"_

"_It was not intentional," _Pavel explained, suddenly bashful. _"I met a girl there, at the academy. She was my age, a genius like me, and I think we were soul-mates. I loved her dearly. But, I should not go into details…you know how it happens, since you hold the proof as we speak."_

His mother's mouth was downcast, lips set in a grim, fine line. "_It was a mistake, involving yourself with this girl. You have nearly ruined both your lives, and at such young ages. Perhaps, when you return to the academy tomorrow, you should end your relationship. I do not intend to be harsh on you, Pasha, but it is for your own good and hers. You understand this, don't you?"_

Pavel felt his eyes sting, and he shook his head numbly at the resurfacing of the brutal truth. _"There's no need, mat. She has died…a breach birth, only five days ago at 0400 hours PST."_

It was his mother's turn to be bombarded with guilt, but he did not like the gray, sort of sallow look that hung over her face like old, weathered drapes. "_I am sorry for your loss. I am sure that, despite this situation you had gotten yourselves into, that she was a very wonderful girl for you to like her so."_

He closed his eyes as the tears brimmed over, spilling onto his cold, pale cheeks as he bit his lip. _"Yes…she was more than just wonderful to me. She was the world to me."_

For a long time, the silence drew on and Chaya watched her son with growing sympathy as his shoulders slouched forward and he began to break. It was such a quiet fracture that, if she had not been listening for it, she could never have hoped to hear the tell-tale sound. His father had been the same, a kindred spirit which shared the iron will that little Pavel, despite the odds against him, had inherited from him.

It took a lot for them to concede, not just the clout of humanity that left them slightly winded, but a blow that would shatter the bones of mountains, the will of giants. Pavel Chekov was not a force to be reckoned with, a strong and determined soul; tragedy was the only adversary who could deprive him of such a gift, who could remind them of his mortality. Despite his prodigious brilliance, he was only a human being…perhaps still only a boy.

"_Pavel," _she murmured from across the table; he did not look up at her when she spoke. _"You are exhausted. I can tell…go up to your room and I will see to it that your little one-"_

"_No!" _He cried suddenly, looking up with tear-stained eyes and sodden, ruddy cheeks. His primary reaction had been a cause of alarm for the both of them, and he calmed himself before continuing, drawing a consoling, shuddering breath. _"Please…it is my last day with her. I want to do it."_

She merely watched him for a few moments, feeling the burden of understanding as the baby's weight in her arms grew more undeniable. That was her Pavel's baby, lying in a bundled heap in her grasp - _her_ little one's...little one. How strange it was, for her, to think of things that she reckoned she shouldn't have had to think about for another ten or fifteen years. The burdening thought made her bones ache and her body suddenly felt so suddenly tired.

"_What's her name?"_

He transfixed his gaze on her, looking confused by the simple question. _"What?"_

"_I asked what her name was."_

He hesitated, wondering if it was some sort of secret mother's trap that she was setting on him. But he swallowed against the apprehension, summoning the will to speak from the fathoms of his weakened body. _"Sonya." _He stated concisely.

"_Sonya," _Chaya replayed the name like a song on her tongue. _"Pasha, take her while I look for the crib. I'll let you say goodnight and change her, but after that you'd better sleep before you collapse."_

As she approached him, her frown deepened, finding the same lines of worry on her face in the youthful countenance of her son. The concerns of a parent, the undying worries that haunted each and every mother and father until the day they died; the stab of painful comprehension left her feeling melancholy that her sixteen year old son should have to know such worldly fears.

The child-like trepidation of leaving home for Starfleet had been all his own, something she could not share, something she approved of because it was his and his alone to reach for. But that pain in his eyes, the agony of loss and the gaining of responsibility was an old companion of hers, one she had known for many years…one they now shared.

More to relieve her own ache than his, she reached for Pavel and pressed a light kiss to his forehead, hoping it would soothe some of the unendurable weight of his bereavement. He merely closed his eyes, accepting the maternal gesture with such thankfulness that he could never tell her in mere insipid words. Instead, he took the baby from her and gave a small nod of appreciation.

She returned it lightly, then disappeared into the hall while he retired to his old room, which he noted would be Sonya's as she grew up in the same house he had grown up in. A wave of nostalgia nearly knocked him off his feet, but he managed to reach the room in one piece.

It was still the same as he had left it, with depictions of space and stars and starships decorating the walls. The wallpaper that he had drawn mathematical equations on early in life, when his mother had not give him a PADD to use and he'd resorted to using whatever he could find before he burst from the overwhelming desire to free them, had been kept as a memoir of his brief time there, undoubtedly for his lonely mother who had him only in spirit after he'd left.

From blocks to his old bed to the little scientific models he'd made as a child, they were all there – nothing had been moved, everything saved.

He heard his mother coming nearer and hurried toward the sounds, finding her in the hall as she struggled with the separate parts of an old crib. _"Mat, let me…I may be tired, but I am still stronger than you are."_

She shrugged her defeat and took Sonya as he retreated to his old room, and by the time she had meandered in after him he'd already had the pieces half-way finished. She mused lightly that it looked like a bare skeleton, the fading wood almost bleached white like old bones.

"_You can come visit her…whenever you want. Weekends, holidays…I will be here."_

He finished constructing the frame and turned to look at her, not even out of breath. _"Part of me is glad to leave her with you…you will not be so lonely anymore, yes?"_

Chaya smiled, a gossamer sort of ghost that flitted over her shadowed features; her arms held the infant closer out of impulse, as if trying to feel the loneliness slowly seep from her. _"Yes, I agree…I will have a piece of you here now to keep. It will be like I have you home again…except that, perhaps, she will not be as fast a learner as you were." _She smiled absently, trapped in her own recollections of old memories.

She stood by the door as she watched her son after he'd reclaimed the baby from her, manufacturing a makeshift diaper out of thick cloth and six of her bobby pins secured over the corners, his reasoning being that newborns did not move as often and that it would suffice for the time being. He left the room briefly with Sonya balanced over his shoulder to dispose of the soiled diaper in the incinerator, coming back a moment later to tuck her into her new crib.

For the few precious moments she'd been given, she watched him so closely that she could see the intertwining tendrils of manifest love in his eyes, the same little vines of emotion that she would find in them when he looked on her. Pavel had always been so quick to be the first to fall in love…but his love was always the last to die, and even then she doubted if his affection was ever truly lost. As sweet as the concept was, her son being so loyal to his loved ones, he knew it was also dangerous and could prove detrimental to his Starfleet career – if he did not leave as soon as possible, he would perhaps never leave at all.

Chaya crossed her arms over her chest. _"Pavel, I must insist that you leave as soon as you can tomorrow, immediately after you wake up. Take enough money out of the savings jar for a ride to the shuttle station and a ticket back to the academy – don't wait to say goodbye to either of us. It will only be harder in the morning, even more so than it is now."_

He nodded, silently telling her that he understood. Quietly, he slid the rail down to bend over his sleeping daughter and kiss her goodbye. "No matter how far away I am, Sonya," he said to the little cherub. "Distance can newer change how much I love you and your _babushka_."

Chaya Chekov smiled at her son and the last thing she saw before leaving the room was Pavel resting his long, pale fingers briefly over Sonya's head…his last unspeaking farewell.


	4. Chapter 3: Love

The first act of purging that Pavel committed after returning from Russia was getting rid of the entire collection of baby miscellany that he had, in his rush, not been able to take with him to give to his mother. Part of him wanted to keep the supplies, the part of him that was not completely guilt-ridden and angered by the decision he'd been forced to make and that wanted to keep as many short-duration memories as he could of Sonya.

But the portion of him, which was the majority of his being, wanted to rid himself of the worldly possessions altogether – a ritualistic cleansing, he had called it when Sulu had walked in to find him compiling the junk into different categories. On one hand, Sulu was at first very glad to have his organized friend back; but mostly he was just curious as to why he didn't just ship it off to his mother.

Pavel had chuckled amiably, flourishing his hand as if to dismiss the idea altogether. "Sulu...why would I do that? I need the money that I spent on all this junk for my own lifestyle. My mother, she takes care of the baby now…yes, there is no need for that. I'll simply sell it to someone who will pay for it."

The next four and a half months marked the beginning of time in which Sulu could not help but be worried for his friend.

After all of the baby paraphernalia was gone (Chekov's roommate, who had been gone to see his new baby sister that had come into the world not a day after Sonya's own birth, had been fanatically grateful to take the stuff off the boy's hands), the systematic lifestyle disappeared too. Sulu would arrive on a Friday night to see his friend, hopeful that a few hours with Pavel Chekov and his incorrigible lust for life would revive his own work-induced stupor, and find his friend's part of the room in near ruins.

Cadet Corbin had always been a bit on the disorganized side with his working space in disarray, but next to Pavel's unmade bed and the hoard of electronics that riddled his desk, it looked positively _normal_.

Since Pavel was, in essence, a teenager, Sulu didn't dwell on the change in personality so much. After all, no matter how mature his friend may have seemed by being enrolled in such a prestigious school and surpassing genius level at everything except Xenobotany (and even in the class that he did not find much interest in, he was still earning above proficient marks), he was still just a boy. And most boys his age were a little untidy at times, and Sulu knew this by experience.

His own room back home had been a victim itself of his disorderly tendencies, harboring seemingly unending piles of vintage comic books and clothes and even processed food that he'd slipped under the bed for his mother to miss, if she happened to come in.

Yes, he knew there was nothing to worry about, Sulu mused, except for a realization of maturity (or lack thereof) and he pushed the worry aside.

But then Pavel began to act even more strange as Corbin put up pictures of his new niece on his desk. It was nothing that someone who did not know Chekov well enough would see, but to Sulu it was such an upheaval that he began to increase his visitations to one night a week to three. He figured, as a friend, he had a moral obligation, but it was more than just that – the radiance in the boy's eyes was losing its potency; reduced to a mere refraction of illumination, a cheap mimic of the light around him, Sulu's concerns were deepening.

It wasn't sorrow that he found there, but _anger_.

Sure enough, when Sulu arrived that Friday night to see Pavel, he found himself slightly anxious as to what he would find when he walked in.

The slow progression of Pavel's veiled anger was becoming more and more treacherous, and as it grew the boy was less able to obscure the undulating resentment; Sulu had a sickening feeling that the exuberant, perpetually sweet-natured prodigy was going to snap soon. After all he'd been through in the last two months, it was a wonder he'd kept himself so composed.

"Chekov?" He leaned against the door, hoping he'd detect some sort of movement from behind the thick slab of metal. "It's Sulu. I'm coming in, all right?"

He didn't expect to hear an answer even if one had been given, not through all that metal and softly droning gears, but figured, out of courtesy, he'd warn the boy of an incoming guest. The doors slid back with a mild hiss, closing behind him even as Sulu's footsteps were harshly ceased by the sight he saw before him.

"Sulu?" Pavel sniffled slightly as he caught sight of the older man. He had been crying, but the shards of thin-plated glass around him left no room for speculation; they'd not been tears of sorrow, but tears of anger. A thread of fear coursed through Sulu as he realized the extent of damage he had suffered in not only losing one of his best friends, but giving away the only part he had left of her as well.

He put out an assuaging hand, moving forward slowly, and watched Pavel's young face begin to darken with inquisition. Sulu took another step. "Are you…all right? You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be?" The boy nodded, more to assure himself than to pacify his friend, but the voice had cracked as he spoke. He looked up at is friend, who was practically crawling toward him, and furrowed his brow. "Hikaru, what are you doing?"

He stopped, as if he had been relieved by the manifestation of competency in the cross-legged figure, but his question was ignored almost completely. "I could ask you the same question."

Sulu gestured to the chaos of glass shards that lay strewn and scattered across the carpet like a broad, misshapen halo.

"Oh, you mean this?" Chekov seemed to become aware of the sharp-edged debris around him and looked suddenly guilty. "I don't know what happened. I just got so mad because…they were ewerywhere and I couldn't take it anymore! I couldn't ask him to just…take them down. How mean would that have been? And I want Cadet Corbin to like me because-"

"Whoa, Chekov. Slow down..." Sulu interrupted him and rushed forward, careful not to impale himself on the encircling remains. He knelt beside the rueful boy, feeling awkward himself about being rather unskilled in the comforting business; at first he figured it was an Uhura sort of specialty, who was, despite her diligence and resolve when it came to her career, rather fond of effervescent, loyal Pavel. Then he began to think of Gaila who had known the boy almost as long as he had and was, to some extent, female (therefore having leverage in a woman-oriented situation).

The more Sulu thought about his lacking ability to soothe (at least, the kind of soothing that Pavel needed), the more bad he felt about it. He was always so calm that it felt as if it should've been second nature, and yet there he was – wanting to help his friend, but not having the experience to do so.

Well, he figured. It was worth a try.

He outstretched his hand, which he was well aware was trembling, and placed it on Pavel's rigid shoulder. At first, the boy gasped, nearly spooking the kind gesture away; but once he had realized his friend's intentions, he actually sort of melted into them.

"What were 'they'?" Sulu asked, and PAvel drew a tremulous breath.

"Pictures." He replied solemnly.

"What kind of pictures?"

Pavel's brow knitted together, as if he were questioning Sulu's sense of reality. "The kind you look at, of course."

Of all the times Pavel's innocence _had_ to be comical…he laughed, and shook his head at the confused cadet. "No, Chekov…what were the pictures _of_?"

"Oh." He paused a moment, picking up one of the vintage-style photographs. "They were of Cadet Corbin's new niece…his baby niece."

All at once, Sulu recognized Pavel's reasoning. It was always a strange idea to Sulu, the concept of feeling alone when surrounded by steadfast camaraderie.

But that was what was going through Pavel's head, what was making him so detached from the world of normality - he missed his family, the newest addition especially.

He sighed, relieved to have found a cure for the encroaching madness. "I understand what's going on here. You need to go home, see your mother…and your daughter."

"No, no…"Pavel shook his head vehemently. "I can't. I told myself that I would let them both go for good, and that was the end of it."

"It's obviously not working out for you, Chekov. Keeping yourself away out of some misplaced sense of honor…it's not right. You need to go."

The boy didn't say anything. It wasn't necessary for him to say a thing, not with that tight-lipped glower forming around his downcast mouth, the pointed exhalation that fanned over Sulu's hands and tickled the sensitive skin. He was saying no…without saying anything at all.

At first glance, the situation seemed impossible; of what little Hikaru Sulu knew about Russians, he was certain he could not mistake their inborn tenacity when it came to honor and the regulations of chivalry. Pavel was not absolved of such a cultural inheritance; in fact, he may have been the most obdurate creature Sulu had ever encountered, even when he took into consideration their Interspecies Ethics lecturer two years before, Commander Spock.

The Vulcan had been a terrifyingly stubborn sort of soul, surrendering to no will but his own and having nothing to do with anything that defied the infallible borders of logic. It had been why Pavel and that particular Commander had not found common ground, not in the entire course of the year – in fact, Sulu still could not repress a chuckle at the thought of the Commander, his austere brow drawn together in what he swore had been an indignant scowl, told Pavel that he was 'the epitome of illogical humanity and the unfortunate example of its deficiency'.

So it was now. Pavel's decision would not be altered, not literally. But another scheme entered Sulu's head, one that would perhaps change his stubborn friend's present state of mind.

"Your stubbornness isn't going to hurt just you, Chekov," He said. "It's going to hurt _her_ too."

The younger man's eyes were watery, but were growing compliant as he began to decipher the meaning of the words. Hurt was the diction that left him feeling barren, cold even. How could he do such a thing to a helpless little thing, who had no intention of harming him in return? Perhaps, she would return his lack of presence in her life with that child's affection that knew no boundaries, no harms of humanity's selfishness. Maybe, in the end, she would hate him…and that was the most terrible fate of all.

"All right," he decided, looking around at the ring of decimation with some repentance. "I will go, but…it will be the end of Hanukkah when I arrive. I must get them something, but I do not have much money to last until the summer holiday."

"Simplicity is an art form," Sulu assured him. "Once you get the hang of it, of realizing what works well in a situation that involves no money, you'll master it in no time."

* * *

The following week, for Pavel, was spent searching for just the right gift for his mother and daughter. His mother was easy, knowing what she liked from experience and long years of a good relationship between them. But for a four month old baby, who was likely to have not even begun sitting up yet, he didn't know what to do. A binky? That hardly seemed a good choice; his mother had probably dug up old storing mechanisms from his infant years and reused everything. As always, his mother was economically driven, not to mention savvy.

In fact, he never decided on anything the entire week, concentrating mostly on lecture and the assignments following. He even had an encounter with his old Interspecies Ethics instructor, the ever-stoic Commander Spock; as usual, he'd been in some sort of placid otherworld all his own and the detachment in his eyes, though more emotional (if that was a word that could describe Vulcan eyes) than usual, was as constant as ever. Pavel, remembering that he had scored high marks in the class, stopped to converse with the Commander and was surprised that he was met with polite feedback from the tall, intimidating Vulcan.

Not expecting such a response from the instructor who had deemed him 'the unfortunate example of human deficiency', he figured that Spock had been in a very good mood; something about the dark, pooling eyes. Usually they were so hard with aloofness from the unfamiliarity of Earth that there was no penetrating them.

That had been the last day, when he had met Spock in the gradually emptying corridors, and he still didn't have a gift for Sonya. But being so distracted by the strange look in the Commander's eyes before and the lectures and assignments he had to occupy his thinking, Pavel hardly gave a sliver of attention toward it. He had forgotten not intentionally, but by the commonplace activity of a typical day at the academy.

When he had rounded the corner, heading toward his quarters, he noticed two tall women standing by his door – one dark-skinned, a rich russet that glowed in the glare of the lights and the other a stark green with a shock of scarlet red hair.

"Gaila? Uhura?" Pavel peered at them, as if checking to see if his vision was working properly.

"Were you expecting someone else?" Uhura asked, giving him a bright smile as he approached the door.

"No. Well, not really…eweryone is going home for holiday. Mostly eweryone…you're staying another week, da?"

"Yeah, well, Gaila and I have volunteered to assist Commander Spock in a short mission to Cardassia. He needed a Cadet fluent in Cardassian and a processing analyst to retain the data we find there."

"A process analyst _and _barrier, I expect." Gaila teased, but was interrupted by a harsh clout to the shoulder by Uhura. The green woman gave a silent protestation, and that was the extent of the revelation of their private joke; Pavel figured he would have been confused either way, seeing as they were women and the complexity of their teasing escaped him mostly. Sometimes, speaking to women for him was like trying to understand an alien language – tedious and slightly unnerving work.

"Would you like to come in?" He asked, his hand motioning toward the empty room as the doors slid open.

Uhura shook her head, the delicate angle of her jaw set in a rigid position of refusal. "No…it's against regulation. I won't go into the specifics…the whole idea is self-explanitory that it doesn't need specifics."

Pavel's eyes softened as his pearl-pale cheeks and ears went rosy with blush, mutedly pleading for her to follow him inside. "Well, I trust you Uhura."

"Yes, but the question is, do you trust _me_?" Gaila purred, her long, green finger brushing past his ear as she paraded by him on her way through the door.

"I can talk to you well enough out here," Uhura replied. "By the way, I hope you haven't put off securing gifts for your family. As small as it is, I'm sure they would appreciate it if you at least thought of them."

His hand flew to his forehead. "_Yo mayo_! I totally forgot!"

She laughed. "Well, that's just so you Chekov…waiting until the last minute on everything else but lecture assignments."

"Wait, I have something," he said, checking the time on his communicator. He flipped it closed once again, then retreated deeper into the heart of the dorm in a rush. He reemerged, a bag over his shoulder. "I have to go, my shuttle leaves in half hour!"

"Goodbye Pasha! Have a good trip – and say hello to your little darling for me!" Gaila called from behind him.

He received nothing more than a near-undetectable brush of fingertips across his hand from Uhura. But that was all he needed from her.

* * *

It was always cold in Russia. Summers were mostly warm, tipping over the edge of pleasant, but mostly just skirting the line of bearable with the humidity pressing down like an anvil on civilian shoulders. Winters, they were worse – the frigid cold, the potential for frostbite if one was careless enough to leave their gloves behind them in a rush. And after living in a temperate climate for three years, Pavel's immunity to the bitter frigidity of Russia's pitiless winters had slowly vanished in the warmth of a mild sun. He arrived in his cadet's uniform with an old, weathered suitcase and Russian currency – this time he wouldn't just give away his pin as payment.

The ten minute drive from the shuttle port to his mother's home was hardly worth the effort of getting in and out of a cab, but the freezing weather was much too intense for his thin scarlet uniform, and he was too tired to deal with the nipping breeze and the fresh-fallen snow. Instead, he admired it from afar in the cab; to him, snow had always been a wonder, no matter how many times he saw it. The idea of something so pure and beautiful falling from the sky he loved so dearly only verified his dreams of one day reaching for it. The stars, the snow – everything beautiful, he decided, came from beyond the world's limited frame.

His mother met him at the door, looking rather tired, but otherwise content as she wrapped the shawl tightly around her and ushered him inside. "_Thank God for the invention of conventional heating systems!_" She uttered in Russian, the entrance closing behind her. Her eyes flitted over Pavel's shivering form for a moment before he enveloped her in an affectionate embrace.

"_Mat_," he murmured, a smile spreading across his half-frozen face. "_I have missed you! Chag Urim Sameach_."

"_Chag Urim Sameach,_" she replied and led him deeper into the warm house. He followed her loyally, breathing over his numbed fingers while he shuffled through each room. "_Sonya, she has…well, Chekov, I suppose it would be easier to show you than to explain."_

The pace of his heart quickenedwhen he heard her sober words. "_What has happened?" _He ventured. "_Sonya…she is all right, yes?"_

"_Come and look," _She placed her hand on his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Chaya led her bewildered son into the doorway that served as an entrance to the nursery, where she hushed him and leaned against the frame, pointing silently toward a certain corner of the room. Pavel's wide, liquid eyes followed the woman's thin finger, his insides crawling with a sort of cold dread that something was terribly wrong with her – something that, perhaps, he had caused in his selfish wish to keep her too long.

But as his line of vision focused on the baby, his precursory thought vanished altogether – instead, he saw something entirely different. A little girl with dark hair and enormous blue-gray eyes was propped up against the wall, the clarity in their color hauntingly similar to the pair of insatiably radiant gaze Pavel saw in the mirror each day. But those eyes were not trained on a reflection in a mirror, not even filled with wonder at her decorated surroundings; instead, they were transfixed on what looked like a baby book. Pictures and words.

Pavel stared at the baby for a moment, dubious of his own competency. "_Is she…reading?"_

Chaya shook her head, still watching the peculiarly unfolding scene. _"No, I do not think so. But she is trying to…like you did, when you were her age."_

For a long, long time, there was nothing but silence between the mother and her captivated son.

* * *

For a few hours of implicit quietude, Pavel maintained his distance from that oddly disconcerting room. It did not occur to him why he should be so undone by the little girl's intelligence, when he, himself, should have been so apt to accept the fact. It was no more unusual than his own brilliance, anyway.

But as he came to a conclusion, he knew that was why he feared it – he hardly wanted his daughter to endure the same treatment as he had, to become the social pariah of her peers. The life of a genius was always sought after, desired…but they did not know, existing and flourishing on the outside of what felt like an enormous glass bowl with intellectuals pressing their faces against it, desperate to get inside. They were ignorant to the loneliness of being behind the glass…the life of a prodigy was also the life of an outcast.

It was not long before Chaya Chekov understood her son's reserve and she drifted from the kitchen after lighting the last candle on the _menorah_. A figure, its silhouette consumed by the half-darkness that had settled over the room, remained perfectly still even as she approached; when spoke the command for the lights to turn on, however, he blinked away the self-induced trance and averted his eyes toward her.

"_You should spend what little time you have here with her." _She advised.

Pavel shook his head and clasped his ashen hands. _"She does not know me."_

"_She will know you when you are gone…she is a fast learner."_

Almost as soon as he had clasped his hands, he released them from their pensive grip and rose from the sofa. Chaya stepped aside as he walked past, her only offering of peace a small, half-hearted smile that told him she knew the toils of parenthood, reminding him…_they will never go away._

The hollow echoes of his footsteps ghosted through the narrow hall and sifted through the warm, heavy air of the room when he stepped inside. Little Sonya looked up from another children's book, and he saw that the blue was merely a trickle of water through her slate-gray gaze. A pearl of blue rain locked within the haze of the clouds.

He knelt to his knees, then to his hands, lowering himself onto his stomach and his elbows settled over the rug on the floor, his chin resting in the crook of his hands. The little girl seemed to react to the stimulation of movement and leaned dangerously forward, nearly losing balance before the curve of her small, round palms caught the surface instead of her frail little forehead. Pavel breathed a secret sigh of relief.

Intrigued, Sonya clambered forward and Pavel could not help but feel foreign to her as her large eyes seemed entranced by the introduction of a new face. That was what he was to her, he thought mournfully…a new _acquaintance. _He attempted to erase the thought as the baby raised herself from her hands and knees for a moment and then plopped down into a sitting position. Without wasting a moment, she reached out with one curious hand and prodded his cheek so carefully that he thought she might have been touching a dangerous alien specimen. Or something like it.

Just as she succeeded in reaching out her small hand, he widened his eyes. "_Boo!"_

A spout of giggles fell from her mouth, and Pavel fancied himself instantly in love.

* * *

The next few days for Chaya proved to be straining on her old age to say the least. Hanukkah had been officially concluded the day her son walked through the door and she had wished, vaguely, that he had arrived sooner; if he had, she could have had the holiday to avert her attention away from the events that were unfolding. She hadn't expected Sonya to start crawling for another three months or so.

And yet, there she was, ambling through the living room after her.

It only took the entire duration of a day for Pavel to teach little Sonya how to crawl properly. A day was all it took for two resplendent minds to merge and accomplish something that, by standards, should not have been attempted until she was older. She reckoned that, if she hadn't had her own mischievous little boy waddling around and sticking his hands into anything that seemed interesting at the time, it would have seemed abnormal to see a five and a half-month old so efficiently mobile on her unsteady little knees.

By day five of Pavel's week-long visit, Chaya was becoming accustomed to the routine of making breakfast while he tended to feeding Sonya. The morning gathering would commence at nine o' clock (or 0900 hours, as Pavel always called it) and the little one would be cradled in his arms with a bottle in her hands by nine fifteen. But on that particular morning, she got another little surprise that, apparently, Pavel had been working on for several days.

She had muttered, clearly, the word _pa. _So clearly, in fact, that even Chaya's disbelief couldn't put it past her. Instead, the weight of her disbelief was directed at Pavel. _"You taught her 'pa' first? Really? After I raised her all these months?"_

She received only an ingenuous shrug. "_Pa is easier to learn than grandmamma."_

_Typical_.

Chaya mused that she could have blamed the most recent developments on Pavel but…it would have seemed unkind, after the long separation between father and daughter. Instead, she let the blame fall on unspecified shoulders, if a child's eagerness to learn could be considered a cause for censure at all.

* * *

It was late when Pavel began preparations to leave. So late that the stars, watery little flecks of space wrapped in their gossamer white veil, began to blink wearily behind the gathering clouds. Snow would fall soon, he mused absently, and turned away from the bare windows.

"_Pasha," _Chaya's voice resounded through the house, seeping through the walls to greet him by the door. He felt like a sentinel, guarding against the harsh cold outside the front door, an unwelcome visitor. "_Your shuttle will be leaving soon. You should say your goodbyes now before time slips away from you."_

It was no use answering her; she already knew what he was going to say without his verbalization of the unspoken thought. Instead, he stole across the room, emerging from the staining light of the old-fashioned scented candles Chaya had always loved to light during the holidays. The smell of pine wafted through the air, peppered with notes of matzo ball soup that had escaped the kitchen.

Chaya began to hum a familiar tune as she shuffled around the cooking area and Pavel felt his heart twinge as he caught sight of her standing before the food replicator. He had only just begun to feel as if home were his again…all too soon it would become a stranger to him, and he could only imagine how his presence would vanish from his family's everyday life altogether. Within weeks, he could only guess.

He entered the makeshift nursery to bid his farewells to Sonya first, knowing it would be the last opportunity he would have for a long time to engage in such a simple activity. For a moment, he was taken aback by the alterations a mere few months had caused, evident in her features and her mental development. His rational mind noticed no change in her countenance, merely the same shapeless mold waiting to be structured into some semblance of Irina's features, perhaps his own…but as he brushed past logic, he found himself ruminating over the expressive eyes and the dark curls sprouting from her soft head. His eyes. Irina's dark curls.

Standing quietly by the door, he watched as the baby stared ruthlessly at a stuffed toy that had been, not so long ago, a gift for Pavel when he had been a child. Her eyes seemed fixed in a frustrated sort of glare as if she were willing the plaything to speak.

"Sonya," he chirped, and the little girl's gaze seemed to ignite with fervor when she started back slightly, certain it was the bear that was speaking to her.

"_Da_?" She inquired, her tiny, musical voice chiming like small bells as the plump little hands tugged roughly in their fit of enthusiasm on one helpless, tattered ear.

"_Ow! Not so hard, now!"_

Sonya clapped her hands over her mouth as the tawny fabric ear came clean off. Pavel could not help but laugh at the expression which spread over her face, stepping out of his anonymity as the little girl detected his presence. He vaguely deliberated the possibility that Chaya would hardly be pleased to find that the bear his dead grandmother had sewn by hand for him was partly ruined.

She held up the wounded bear as if to surrender, her eyes wide and lamp-like in the midst of their intrigued spark; he could almost, if he looked deep enough, perceive the impression of fascination sweeping across her vivaciously lit features.

"_Uh oh_!" He took the bear from her, fondling the eruption of stuffing where, before, the ear used to be. "_Looks as if we were the both of us a little rough on our old Misha here."_

"_Pa_," she muttered, outstretching her hands as if to ask for him to hold her. He acquiesced, gathering the little figure into his arms and she pointed to the damaged toy at his feet. "Oops."

"_Da, _Sonya," he laughed, pressing his lips fondly to her round, flush cheek. "Oops _is right."_

Her small arms enclosed around his neck as he moved to the bed to sit down, careful not to sit on the object in the back pocket of his slacks in the midst of easing onto the mattress. "Well, _moya dorogaya. _I have a little gift for you before you go to sleep, something for the holidays, da?"

Pavel struggled for the small pouch while he balanced Sonya's weight and reached for his back pocket simultaneously, finally obtaining the drawstring-purse and heaving a sigh of relief as he coaxed the trinket from the depths of its concealment.

An emblem, one that he had fashioned himself to fit the figure of his Starfleet pin, glimmered in a spasm of light that passed over it as he rotated the ornament in his fingers; the glimmer caught her attention, and she grabbed for it, eager to capture the essence of such illumination. She wanted to learn how it worked, how the light came to be and why it danced over the wrought metal.

He tucked the little girl's head into the crook of his neck, feeling the wisps of her curls tickling the skin there. "_I know it's probably not fair that I give you something you can't have yet but_…"He sighed, his teeth inattentively gathering a portion of his lip to chew amidst his bout of thoughtfulness.

"_It's your own promise, one that I hope you'll make someday._ _It doesn't need to be Starfleet…it can be anything you want. It's a reminder for you…when you're old enough you can reach for your own stars."_

The room was quiet, the snow falling like stars from a painted gray sky as he replaced the hand-wrought trinket into the pouch, hiding it away in a drawer for safe-keeping from curious fingers.

She was too young; _not just yet_, he ruminated, and the thought was submerged beneath an all-consuming glimmer of hope that burst through him. _Not just yet...but someday **soon**._

She only reached out for him once when he pulled the hem of her coverlet to her chin, bending over the frame of the crib to kiss her forehead. It was enough to quell her demand, and she seemed to gently drift into some otherworld of newborn dreams, a place of untouched innocence in the midst of a child-like stupor.

Somewhere Pavel knew he couldn't follow…_not anymore._

* * *

AN: Only one chapter left. Any feedback would be appreciated and well recieved. I'm hoping to, after this, write another full-length fic. Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer - I don't own Star Trek or any of the characters. It all belongs to Gene Roddenberry and JJ Abrams.


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